Google France's Escape Room Is A Haven For The App Savvy

Curtis Silver
, ContributorWriting on Consumer Tech & Social Media with a satirical, cynical edgeOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Image Credit: Google / Lionsgate / C.Silver

Escape rooms are not a new concept. The basic premise is that you are faux trapped in a room and are provided clues around the room in order to escape. Even Brooklyn Nine-Nine had a recent subplot-line taking place in an escape room. Companies offer escape room experiences right alongside mystery murder dinner theater. These games are a lighter version of Saw, you know, being trapped but without the threat of a gory and unexpected death. Now
Google France is getting in on the escape room bit.

Called Première Pièce and created by global marketing agency We Are Social, the first escape room will open (then close) in an undisclosed location in Paris. The physical room will require participants (most likely Millennials bored with suspender shopping and craft beer blogging) to solve puzzles using Google apps.

Here's the promo video that is presented as if there is an actual threat perceived.

Using apps such as Search, Maps, Translate, Photos, Arts & Culture and Cardboard participants must complete the expected pretentious premise:

Visitors must help save a crew of digital artists locked in a workshop, so they can present their painstaking work at an art centre in Paris. By working together, participants must unlock an object that completes their masterpiece.

This sounds like an awesome batch of wholesome fun. Reservations are already full, in case you were thinking about joining in the non-threatening excitement. They are going to kick off the game with a bunch of hyper-caffeinated YouTube stars with some interactive elements. Observers can issue challenges, or as the release states: send the players pizza. Because that makes sense when a bunch of people are trapped in a room. I mean, at least no one is handcuffed to a radiator, though that would make it more interesting. Is there an app for that? Do they only get flip phones?

While the game does encourage teamwork, let's be honest here, there can only be one survivor, er, winner. Forget the apps, put a chair through the drywall and walk right on out. That's how you escape a room. Millennials have no idea that at one time, we had to break things to escape from places, we couldn't just use apps. Sheesh.

Perhaps the recent raid of Google France was not due to tax evasion but an effort to free the Millennials trapped in the escape room. There is no word as to if Google's play on the escape room trend will make its way to the States. So you'll have to deal with figuring out how to escape your mundane lives in the erstwhile. (Hint: put a chair through the drywall.)